I've been working on getting a CA or CA/BLO finish on my pens for a few months now, but have been mostly unsuccessful to this point. I understand that some woods do not take finishes well, so that may be part of the problem, but I also wonder if the conditions in my shop are affecting my finishes. I have a separate building from my house, and it is not air conditioned (yet). I also recently poured my first batch of PR, and while the color did not work out as I had hoped (that's a separate issue), the resulting blanks were VERY brittle. I tried a second batch, using much less catalyst, and had the same result. Both castings were left out to cure on the bench in the shop overnight. All of this is done recently here in Georgia, with temperatures in the high 80's to mid 90's during the afternoon and relatively high humidity most days. Any thoughts?